While Oklahoma City and Charlotte are becoming the surprise rising teams in the NBA, Philadelphia is really struggling, Washington is a mess, Detroit can't figure out their team, and Chicago is full of trade rumors. Still, they aren't facing off against the best of the league, and a large number of wins seems feasible.

One of the keys to success has been Ryan Hollins. He has started all four games of the Wolves' current streak.

He has also put up some impressive numbers in most of those games. However, his really productive trait is working well in a lineup with Al Jefferson.

There has been a longtime debate over whether Jefferson and Love can play well together. Hollins starting four games and turning them into wins has to make you wonder about that.

Although at the beginning of the year, people thought the same of Damien Wilkins, but that theory has been disproven. We think.

Al Jefferson has been our statistically best player in the past four games, according to ESPN's formula for how well a person has played (PTS + REB + 1.4*AST + STL + 1.4*BLK -.7*TO + FGM + .5*FGM -.8*(FGA-FGM) + .25*FTM - .8*(FTA-FTM)).

The ranking of who has played the best statistically in all four games looks like this:

Al Jefferson

Kevin Love

Ryan Gomes

Jonny Flynn

Corey Brewer

Ramon Sessions

Ryan Hollins

Damien Wilkins

Wayne Ellington

Oleksiy Pecherov

Sasha Pavlovic

But it's pretty close. Al and Kevin have both played extremely well, and are obviously somehow keys to the Wolves winning.

We just don't know how yet.

So the Timberwolves will just go on playing the basketball they've been playing the past week or so, and hopefully, it will be another month to remember, just like last year.

A quick little fact I just found: The Timberwolves average more technical fouls per game than their opponents that night.